Soldiers of the Great War smoked their way through alps of tobacco, in an age when we seemed to have no idea that smoking did any harm. Many tobacco ads and pleas for smokes for the boys showed nurses administering smokes to the wounded as if tobacco had medicinal properties.
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One hundred years ago this week "Clio" of Melbourne's Punch reported that "John McCormack, the Irish tenor, who had such an immense season here last year, followed by an equally enormous time in America, has just started out on another American tour."
"Before leaving London he donated a million cigarettes to the troops, half for soldiers in the field and half for those in hospitals. Splendid. This was in response to urgent appeals being made through the English press for cigarettes and tobacco for the soldiers. "Tommy" - magnificently brave, incomparable "Tommy" - it seems, can face anything so long as he has his pipe or cigarette between his teeth.
"It is meat, drink, stimulant and anaesthetic to him. With a cigarette to smoke, he places himself in the hands of the surgeon with perfect composure. So do not let us forget the pipes, tobacco and cigarettes for our [Australian] men. Cannot the Boy Scouts get up a cigarette fund?"
Meanwhile Lady Denman (wife of a former Governor-General and famous announcer of our capital city's name), back in London now, was soon to become the dynamic head of Britain's Smokes For The Troops campaign. She was to convert the ballroom of the Denman's London mansion into a cigarette warehouse.
